Less pollution, less congestion … those are good reasons to travel by train, but stress may be an even better one. For instance, people admitted to hospitals for heart attacks have a higher rate of having been in heavy traffic congestion just prior to their medical emergencies than other types of patients.
And according to the Post Carbon Institute, 90 percent of people in the U.S. commute to work by car and 85 percent of those commuters drive alone.
So Filmmakers Rebecca Sansom and Katie Chen started a successful Kickstarter campaign to see if we could avoid major future health problems. The solutions they came up with are presented in their documentary, which looks at passenger rail travel in the United States.
The film, Trainsforming America, compares the U.S. passenger rail system with its counterpart in Europe. Unlike other films on the subject, this one looks at the topic from the passengers’ point of view.
Sansom spoke with me on Transportation Radio about the film in this audio interview. Also check out the trailer below, and stay tuned here for future screenings.